On the Brink: Climate Change Endangers Common Species

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A wide variety of plants and animals are likely to become much
less common if something isn't done to avert the worst effects of
a warming climate, new research suggests.

Under a "business as usual" scenario, where greenhouse gas
emissions aren't significantly reduced, about 50 percent of
plants and one-third of animals are likely to vanish from half of
the places they are now found by 2080, said Rachel Warren, a
researcher at the University of East Anglia in England. These
losses could lead to local extinctions of species.

In the study, published online today (May 12) in the journal
Nature Climate Change, researchers looked at the likely effects
of global
warming on 50,000 different species around the world. The
study used a computer model that calculated the desired climatic
zone that these plants and animals live in, and analyzed how
these zones, and the organisms' accompanying ranges, are likely
to shift in the future, Warren told OurAmazingPlanet. [ 8
Ways Global Warming is Already Changing the World ]

In many cases these shifts are likely to cause extinctions, as
warming temperatures force animals and plants to move to points
beyond which they cannot go, such as up mountaintops and toward
coastlines into the ocean, Warren said.

However, plants and animals with limited ranges were
intentionally excluded from this study, because the goal was to
gauge climate change's effects on common species, Warren said. In
other words, if you include total extinctions —
which this study did not — the impact of climate change on
global
biodiversity looks even worse.

Not too late

It's not too late to do something to prevent the widespread loss
of species, however. The study found that if emissions are slowed
and ultimately begin being reduced by 2017, about 60 percent of
the losses can be avoided, Warren said. If emissions peak in 2030
and are reduced after that, about 40 percent of the losses could
be avoided.

The losses are likely to be particularly severe in Central and
South America, Australia, North Africa and Southeast Asia, Warren
said. These areas are vulnerable to declines in rainfall and
increasing temperatures, according to the study.

A decline in plants and animals means a decline in the services
these organisms provide, such as recycling of nutrients,
purification of air and water, pollination, as well as draws for
ecotourism and recreation, she added.

Some species are likely to be more tolerant than others, but the
point of this study is that it didn't focus on any one plant or
animal, or specific high-profile creatures like polar bears,
Warren said. "The important message I want to get across is that
there are large effects on a large proportion of species," she
said.

Warren said she considers the estimates conservative, since the
study didn't take into account interactions between animals and
plants, which could exacerbate declines; if an animal's preferred
plant food disappears, it too could bite the dust. The research
also didn't consider the effect of
extreme weather that many models project will become worse
with global warming, she said.

"There will be winners and losers in the natural world as species
respond to climate change," said Lee Hannah, a senior fellow in
climate change biology at Conservation International, who wasn't
involved in the research. "This study shows that we can greatly
reduce the losers among common, well-known species by taking
action to reduce climate change."

This "phenomenal" study "scared me to death," said Terry Root, a
scientist at Stanford University who wasn't involved in the
research. "What it is showing is how many species we are actually
affecting by putting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," she told
OurAmazingPlanet.